Someone Has To
by whatatravesty
Summary: After a calamity, Filch finds himself alone to run Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

_May 2, 1998_

It was quiet. Too quiet.

It had been loud before. Explosions, scattered footsteps, yelling, the clamor could be heard all the way even from the corner Filch had hid himself. A narrow, dead-end passageway, whose entrance lay behind the suit of armor just a few halls from the Potions classroom. Deep in the dungeon, Filch was sure nobody knew of it, and if they did, they certainly had no reason to come there. Filch had scurried there as soon as the fighting had broken out.

And now it sounded like it was over. He sat there waiting, just to be sure—after all, he couldn't risk getting into the fight, with no way to defend himself—but after an hour with not a peep to be heard, he felt it was time to brave it.

He quietly crept up to the ground floor. He passed a few corpses on the way there. It was a shock to see a dead body, but also not a shock, given what had gone on, that a handful of people would die. It was a displeasure, of course, but also not. Filch had passed the dead body of one of the Weasley twins, who had always caused him trouble, and the bodies of some cloaked figures, who were probably Death Eaters.

Filch pushed open the tall door leading into the Great Hall. Then the true shock came.

The floor was littered with corpses, and there wasn't a living person to be seen.

In the center of the room, a very tall man, with scaly skin and a bald head, who could only be _him_ , He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, lie on the ground. Across from him, The Boy Who Lived, or The Chosen One, another trouble-maker of a student, lied down too. And more and more around the room, more red-heads, including the other twin, with a gaping hole in his head where his ear should be, Draco Malfoy, and two who looked like his parents. And professors as well, McGonagall, Flitwick, even the oaf Hagrid.

All dead.

Well, no wonder it was so quiet.

Filch dragged himself around the rest of the castle. The dead were not as dense, outside the Great Hall, but they were scattered. He peaked his head out of a window, and saw the grounds were strewn with corpses as well. In the library, Madam Pince was dead at her desk, apparently having thought that she would simply work through the battle.

Filch felt a pang of relief when he the first living thing to be found was Mrs. Norris, his cat, holed up in his office. He poured her some more food and then sat down at his desk.

"Can't let a few accidents get in the way of our job, can we?" he wheezed at Mrs. Norris, his voice hollower than usual.

On his desk was scattered an assortment of papers. A stack of detention reports, which was now useless, a record of confiscated items, and an accounting of cleaning supplies. He grabbed a quill and parchment and wrote a brief letter.

 _To whom it may concern,_

 _A war broke out in Hogwarts. I have not identified any survivors besides myself. Teachers are dead. Students are dead. Many Death Eaters are dead. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is probably dead._

 _— Filch, Hogwarts Caretaker_

e walked up to the owlery and sent an owl to the ministry. As soon as they heard, someone would surely show up immediately. Given travel time for the owl, that meant someone from the ministry would be here in a few hours at most.

Then he went about cleaning up Hogwarts, as he had always done.

Filch had never had to clean up corpses before. Dead animals sometimes, but with the bodies he knew he would have to be careful and preserve the bodies for a funeral. He moved people into the Great Hall and lined them up in rows, which took several hours to do on his own, and then he went about cleaning. Lots of furnishings had fallen over or broken. Some walls had chunks taken out of them. Blood was all over the walls.

He didn't have body bags, unfortunately, as so many dead bodies created quite a stench. The Great Hall started to attract lots of flies. Filch decided to keep out until some officials could come and deal with them.

But no official came the entire day. Filch was starting to worry that something else was amiss. Possibly an enchantment keeping others out?

It was almost nightfall when he heard a loud tapping on the window. Finally, the owl he had sent off had returned! Filch let him in, and reached out expecting the owl to stick out his leg for Filch to untie a message. But the owl started yelping and flying around the room, clearly agitated. He chased it until it calmed down, and then Filch saw that it wasn't even carrying a reply. Only the unopened letter that Filch had sent was attached to the owl's leg.

Worried now, he decided to take the letter down to Hogsmeade. He had rarely been to the village himself, as it was quite a walk, but he knew there was a post office there. They could make sure the letter was delivered.

But Filch felt a growing dread as he approached the village. It, too, was too quiet. _No, of course it is quiet_ , Filch told himself. _I'm still too far away._ But Filch's rationalizations held less water the closer and closer he got. And when he passed the town's entrance, without yet having heard a single voice or footstep, he knew exactly what he would find.

Bodies on the ground. Bodies sitting on benches, hunched lifelessly over their papers. Bodies could be seen through the window fronts of stores.

He reached the post-office. A postal officer sat at the counter inside, dead, while owls flew around him in chaos.

 _Whatever happened at the castle, it must have reacher here, too,_ Filch thought. Then he remembered the letter that didn't come back. Could it possibly have killed _everybody_ in the country? Or in the world?

Filch ran into the post office and spotted a fireplace on the side, with a bowl of Floo powder nearby. He would be able to get to civilization, find someone alive. But where to?

Someone he knew, someone who might be alive…

He grabbed a pinch of powder and threw it in the fire. It roared, tall and green, and Filch stepped in.

"Arabella Figg!"


	2. Chapter 2

Filch had never been so relieved as when he heard a startled woman's voice say "Argus?"

Panting from the Floo ride, Filch sat down. "Bella, oh, it's good to see somebody _alive_ —"

"Alive? Oh!" Mrs. Figg's eyes widen with a look up realization. "From Hogwarts, everyone must be, oh my goodness Argus, are you all right?"

"Everybody's dead, teachers, students, Death Eaters. All of Hogsmeade—"

"Yes, yes, everybody is dead here too. Except us I mean. The, you know, the squibs. And the muggles. But all the magic folk, everybody with a drop of magic, they're all dead."

"Why?"

Mrs. Figg shrugged. "Search me. I've barely heard from anybody else. Eric and Vanessa were over a few minutes ago, told me all of their relatives were dead. You just missed them, we pieced it together from the muggle papers." Mrs. Figg passed Filch a paper. The headline read:

 **Mysterious Deaths Worldwide**

Thousands of people have suddenly dropped dead today for unknown causes. Medical examinations reveal that there appears to be nothing wrong with them, other than that they were dead.

The article went on for pages, describing some interviews, making some observations, like that most of the dead people were wearing strange clothing, and asking anybody with information to come forward.

On the next page was a list of dead. Filch recognized several names, including his cousin, Ned Filch. The Longbottoms and the Diggorys caught his eye as well—both of the families lived in the middle of Muggle neighborhoods.

"They're dead then, everybody? Every wizard and witch?"

"Appears so."

"What are we gonna do, then?"

"Well," she blinked. "I guess I'll just get by as I always have. You know, living among muggles. With a muggle house and all that," she said flatly. "And I suppose you, too, will, um…" she trailed off. She looked questioningly.

Filch did not really know how to live as a muggle. He had some ideas, but having been at Hogwarts his entire life, he really didn't know what muggle life was like.

Guessing at what he was thinking, Mrs. Figg broke the silence, "do you… need a place to stay? Ah, there's not really any room here, but there is a hotel—"

"No, thank you." Filch shook his head. "I should get back to Hogwarts then. I can stay there. And someone needs to clean it up."

"Oh no, Argus, you really don't need to take that on yourself—"

"Yes, I do, I'm the caretaker of Hogwarts."

And with another flash of green, Filch was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

Filch woke up the next morning to a loud clang below him.

He leapt out of bed. His heart racing, he ran down the stairs. _Who could that possibly be?_

But of course, there was only one thing it could have been—Peeves.

"Curses, Peeves, of course if I have be stuck in this castle with ONE being it has to be YOU."

Peeves cackled over the suit of armor he had smashed. "Not like I can do much more damage," he said in a mock-sad tone. "Great hall is a mess of decomposing flesh. Everything is broken, house elves in the kitchen crying their heads off," Then he broke out in a grin. "But as long as you're still here, there will always be mischief—"

"PEEVES, THIS IS NO TIME FOR JOKES! If you don't stop, I'll get the Bloody Baron—" and Filch stopped, wondering what had happened to him. Until just now, he hadn't run into any of the ghosts while wandering the village.

"Ah, good luck with that, the heads of the houses are off in some corner in Hogsmeade drowning in their sorrows trying to taste butterbeer. But you know, I think Professor Binns did give his lecture today, you know, he didn't really notice that nobody was there—"

But Peeves stopped as he saw that Filch had run off.

* * *

Filch darted down to the basement, skipping stairs at a time. _The house elves!_ How could he forget? Of course, the house elves never caused trouble, so he didn't notice them most of the time.

He tickled the pear on the picture of the fruit bowl, and the door opened up to the kitchens. Inside were a hundred house elves in disarray. Some where on the floor, with bottles of butterbeer strewn about, some were at the counters preparing food, and all seemed to have tear stains on their eyes. Some elves rushed towards him with plates. The started exclaiming at once,

"Sir!

"We have been making food!"

"Please eat!"

Filch noticed that there were piles and piles of uneaten food sitting around the kitchen. The house elves were doing their jobs, although they had no customers.

Filch _was_ rather hungry though, having barely eaten from his small stash of snacks in the office since he came out of hiding. The house elves' food did taste a bit off, as if it were rushed.

"Do any of… you know what happened?" Filch asked inquistively.

One of them piped up. "There was a battle! He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was coming, he demanded Harry Potter, sir! But he was not letting them have him, no, he stood up! And then he explained, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's wand's master was not He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named! The wand's master was Dobby's old master!"

"A house elf used to work here, sir, named Kreacher! He said that one man was thinking he was his master, but Kreacher was really serving another! And the man who thought he was his master ended up dead! It was like that!"

"But this wand was the Death Stick, the Elder Wand, Harry was explaining! And the wand after Dobby's master went to himself! And then they fought, and then…"

"But not just He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was dead! Now everybody was dead, the Death Stick was not happy being tricked, no!"

Filch didn't know if the elves knew what they were talking about or not. He sighed. Well, at least he wouldn't starve if the house elves stayed here.

* * *

Filch continued his cleaning. He followed some muddy footprints that led from Dumbledore's office. To his surprise, as he approached the gargoyle that blocked the entrance, it sprang aside for him.

He continued cleaning, going up the stairs and scrubbing off the mud.

It was only when he got to the top and saw the portrait of the previous headmaster, Severus Snape, on the wall that he realized why the gargoyle had moved aside.

Hogwarts always recognizes a headmaster. When the headmaster dies, the headmastership passes to the deputy. After that, it goes to the staff member it deems most qualified.

Filch was now the only living staff member.

Filch, the squib, was now the Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy.

He started laughing as he looked around the room. Dumbledore's strange instruments remained around the room, as it looked like Snape hadn't bothered to take them down. Filch sat down at the desk, still laughing.

"I'm the headmaster!" he exclaimed to nobody in particular. "That's right, I, the squib Argus Filch, who can't do a spell to save his life, I've been kicked around by these kids for fifty years, and now I'm at the top! Ha! The top of ash and dust yes, but I'm at the top!" He continued laughing as the portraits grimaced around him.


	4. Chapter 4

_June 24, 1998_

Mrs. Norris pranced around the headmaster's office while Filch swiveled in his chair. "Food's gotten a lot worse," he grumbled to her.

It was true. House elves at Hogwarts usually had other arrangements for the summer, but most of those arrangements were now moot, so they stayed, and they continued preparing unneeded food until they had run out of ingredients. They restocked from… somewhere… Filch really didn't want to know from where. The house elves surely couldn't just waltz into a muggle grocery and buy some vegetables, but Filch didn't think the Hogwarts rules permitted them to steal, either.

"Meowww" Mrs. Norris screeched.

"Yes, I know the grounds are in disarray," Filch snapped back. Hagrid usually lived at Hogwarts year-round, and he made sure the grounds were tended to, but of course he was gone, now. Grass needed mowing, most of all. "Those elves have too little to do, I could put them on it—"

He was interrupted when suddenly he saw a parchment and quill fly off the shelf from his left, from where they had been lying inconspicuously next to the Sorting Hat. The parchment plopped down on the headmaster's desk in front of Filch and the feather then lightly floated down to the parchment, balanced perfectly upright. It held for a few moments while Filch and Mrs. Norris stared in bewilderment, and then suddenly it began writing.

 _Aaronson, Jeff_

 _Chang, Emilia_

 _Cheswick, Bill_

…

The list went on, all the way down to _Wimberly, Sarah._ Twenty-five names in all.

"What's this all about, eh?" Filch growled turned around and looked the portrait of his former headmaster in the eye.

The visage of Dumbledore looked down at him and sighed. " _That_ is the admissions Quill. Every summer, it is enchanted to identify the names of all students eligible to enter Hogwarts this fall."

"Well, guess they're all dead now, eh?" _Poor kids_ , he thought to himself.

"A dead kid is not _eligible_ to enter Hogwarts, Argus. And may I remind you that as _headmaster_ , you are obligated to ensure these kids receive their _education."_

"Headmaster! I never signed up to be headmaster, I'm just the caretaker, you know! I couldn't teach these kids anything—"

"And yet you seem to content to sit in my old chair— _our_ old chair," he gestured to the portraits beside him, "—lording over the grounds. If you want to head this place you had better start acting like it, _Filch_."

Filch looked at the parchment again, and then at Mrs. Norris. "What do you think, sweetheart?" Mrs. Norris hissed at him.

"Filch, _somebody_ has to do it." Dumbledore said, a hint of pleading in his voice this time.

"Or _what?_ " But Filch knew even as he asked the question. If nobody did it, these kids would grow up never learning to use magic, like he had. But Filch has never had any potential. These kids _did_ have potential. Filch knew he wouldn't be able to live himself if he let that go to waste. Hadn't that been why he chose to work at Hogwarts in the first place, back before fifty years of grunge work had disillusioned him?

"Fine!" he snapped as he stood up. "Mrs. Norris, we are going to run a school year at Hogwarts!" And Filch felt a momentary thrill from his sudden resolve, and then reality hit again, because, in fact, Filch had no idea what to do.


	5. Chapter 5

_June 28, 1998_

Filch paced back and forth through his office, contemplating the task ahead of him.

 _I'll need to contact all of these students, send them the standard Hogwarts letters. And I'll need to get them all here somehow. The train from King's Cross surely won't work, nobody to drive it. I'll just tell the kids to get here themselves, to that Muggle village far west, of course, that isn't going to be quite as grand but the muggle-borns won't know the difference…"_

All twenty-five students, had, in fact, been muggle-borns. Filch cross-checked all the names with old Hogwarts records and found no matching relatives; he had then gone out and, using Hogwarts' fortunate stash of Muggle currency, acquired a muggle phone book and looked up all the names from the scroll and determined their addresses.

It was a mystery to Filch how the muggle-born witches and wizards had survived the great calamity, a bit of a contrived plot device really, but perhaps it was simply that these muggle-borns had not manifested their powers until just now and thus remained hidden from whatever force sought out all magical humans and exterminated them.

And so, the next Hogwarts class size would be half the size as usual.

 _Of course, with muggle-borns, we need to convince their parents that magic is real, and that it's safe for their children to come to Hogwarts, and usually we send professors to do that, but I'll have to do it all. And I'll have to help them obtain all their equipment, that could take a whole day each._

 _No, no, that would take too much time, I can't afford that, it could take a whole day for just one student. Not like I can take the kids to Diagon Alley anyway, it's in ruins, and I need to spend time to figure out what the hell I'm going to these kids anyway…_

Filch continued pacing.

* * *

The next morning, Filch decided it was time to enact his plans.

Filch stepped out of a green flame in the Leaky Cauldron. It was a mess, like it had been rummaged through, but it was devoid of anything of value; Filch suspected someone had looted it. Other squibs, perhaps?

Diagon Alley was even worse off. Filch had expected some broken windows and some run-of-the-mill looting, but not this. Houses were torn down, garbage and junk piled up in the streets. Empty carts were sprawled here in there. It was a free-for-all except for Knockturn Alley, which was boarded off by a large gate labeled "DANGER: KEEP OUT".

Filch was relieved to see the store he had come for was still intact, and he stepped inside, preparing to do some looting of his own. Filch pulled a list out of his jacket. The first item on the list was _Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1)._ He saw stacks of copies at the side of the room. Good.

He counted out twenty-six, that is, one for each student plus an extra for himself. He eyed a fireplace in the corner; that was good, it would be easy to get the loot back to Hogwarts, where he would then hand them out on the first day of classes.

He grabbed _A History of Magic_ , _Magical Theory_ , and the rest of the standard first years' course load and Floo'ed it directly back to his office at Hogwarts, and then set out for his next stop.

A few doors down was Ollivander's Wand Shop. Filch stood outside for a few moments, as he looked at the looming gray store, unhappy memories starting to surface.

 _"Don't worry, don't worry, you know, it's the wand that chooses the wizard, Argus, and sometimes you have to go through twenty so or so…" But young Argus tried wand after wand until his hand hurt, until "twenty" had becomes "hundreds," until other students had come and gone, their faces glowing on the way out, having found the wands for them. Finally Ollivander sent him on his way, telling Argus he needed to get checked out, to see if he had the magical abilities at all…_

Filch snapped back to the present. He was here to obtain enough wands for the incoming students.

But as he pushed open the door, he saw that he would once again be leaving without a single wand. Bare shelves stood in a row on the inside. There was not a single wand in sight. Filch sighed and walked out, and he suddenly heard a drunk chortle from his right.

He looked down, and a goblin stood there, knee-high, laughing his ears off. "That's the first place we emptied you know!" He pointed at the store Filch had left. "For centuries, wizards have kept us from owning wands! Hoo-hoo! Well nobody to stop us now, is there!" He pulled a stubby wand out of his pocket and pointed it at Ollivander's sign. There was a loud _crack_ and the sign was expelled from its hinges, falling to the ground with a clank.

"Watch that, damn you!" Filch cried out. "So you all thought you'd just steal everything from this alley, eh?" Filch accused the goblin. The seemingly systematic effort to empty Diagon Alley of all value suddenly made sense. Hundreds of goblins lived in the area, working at the Gringotts Bank.

"Can't be stealing if it ain't owned by anyone!" the goblin spat back. "Saw you stealing some _books_ not fifteen minutes ago, so don't get all high and might with me, _wizard_."

"I'm not—never mind." Filch calmed himself. There were more pressing issues. "What are you all doing with the bank?"

The goblin grinned again. "Oh well of course, that all goes to its rightful owners. In most cases, muggle relatives of the vault owner. Although, you know, few are coming by to claim their items, I'm sure some of the gold will, ah, be seized by appropriate authorities after some time. Hoo-hoo! Ah, I probably shouldn't have said…"

Filch ran off in disgust.

Diagon Alley, he saw, would be worthless in a short while, and it was good he had come as soon as he had, and he was glad he nor Hogwarts owned anything there (Filch had nothing to his name, and Hogwarts kept its reserves inside itself). He walked again past the gated off Knockturn Alley, and he was sure that the goblins were just keeping people out, protecting the dark valuables in there until they could find a way to safely extract them.

He found his last stop, the apothecary for potions supplies. After this, Filch was sure, he wouldn't be stepping another foot in this alley again.


	6. Chapter 6

_August 1, 1998._

Filch had been putting off the task he had not wanted to do even though he realized that it would only get worse as time went on.

He had, of course, tasked the house elves with as much as possible. They had cleaned the dormitories of all their previous occupants' belongings and stashed the contents away in storerooms. Used textbooks and other supplies, along with the materials Filch had procurred at Diagon Alley, would last a generation of Hogwarts stuents—more than that, really, when accounting for the smaller class size.

But house elves refused, on principle, to touch wands. This was something Filch would have to do himself.

He opened the doors to the Great Hall for the first time since the day Hogwarts had been at war. The stench of death, pouring out of rows and rwos of rotten and decaying corpses filled Filch's nostrils. Eyes watering, he trudged his way through the mass of people. For each one, he pried a wand from its owner's cold, dead hand. The wands themselves each felt cod and dead in Filch's own hand. Of ocurse, the wands would never recognize Filch as a wielder.

The work took Filch hours as he rummaged meticulously to make sure he missed nothing. It would not be easy to obtain wands any other way, and Filch wanted to make sure his stash would be as large as possible. As he took the wand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, he remembered—hadn't the house elves said something about it being the cause of all this? He had better not hand it out to any students, just in case. Rather than dump it in his sack with the rest, he pocketed it.

When the job was done, he set the sack down outside the Great Hall. Then for one last task—to clean up. He lit a match and threw it onto the body nearest the doorway, the student he recognized as Colin Creevey. Then he closed the door, knowing a clean slate was finally on its way.


	7. Chapter 7

_August 4, 1998._

 _Knock, knock, knock._ Filch rapped on the door of the quiet suburban home. He heard rustling around inside and then a young, hesitant-looking woman opened the door. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"I'm here for a Benjamin Smith," Filch said, as professionally as possible. He was wearing his best muggle suit. Not a great suit, but it was passable. (Wizards had had a habit of pretending to be comically incompetent at muggle dress, a social signaling mechanism that always irked Filch and other squibs.) "Your son, I presume?"

The woman looked startled. "Here _for_ him? W-what do you mean?"

"I mean I would like to speak with him. And yourself, of course. I am the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and I've come to offer him a place—"

"You won't take him away!" she suddenly shrieked. She slammed the door in his face. "Don't come near my family again!" Filch heard through the door.

Filch cursed to himself. He had known this would happen, of course. All the notes in Hogwart's guidebook on approaching Muggle families had warned about it. Parents were skeptical of magic existing. Some would staunchly deny that magic existed, genuinely believing it, and thinking the staff member merely a scammer. In these cases, the guidebook's suggestion was to show off magical skill that couldn't be faked by magicians and illusionists. For this, Filch had come with his Kwikspell wand. Nearly useless for day-to-day tasks, it could at least produce some mildly impressive visual effects.

There was another common class of parents, though. Rather than confident and clueless, this group was paranoid and frightened. Many muggle-borns exhibited signs of magic beforehand, causing weird and unexplainable things to happen around them. The parents would get scared, fearing things like that the government would come to "put away" an anomaly. Benjamin's mother struck Filch as belonging to this group.

Unfortunately, the guidebook's suggestion for this situation was the Confundus Charm. Filch definitely couldn't do a Confundus Charm, even with Kwikspell. So, he had come prepared to persuade instead. The woman was fearful, and so Filch would just have to present Hogwarts as the solution to her fears.

He knocked again. "Ma'am, I know your must be scared—your son has probably been doing scary things and you don't know what's going on—but this is what our school is for! We will help your son learn to control his magic!" he shouted, but he got no response. Well, reassurance had never been Filch's strong suit.

But threats had been.

"If we don't help, Benjamin's condition will only get worse! The government, or worse, might notice! And they won't be sending a harmless old man like me when they come to take your son away!"

(In particular, Filch's strong suit had been threats that were backed up by some other authority.)

There was silence, and Filch was about to say something again, and suddenly the door opened a crack and the woman's eyes peeked out.

"You—you really can help?"

"Indeed. We are just a standard boarding school. We will provide proper equipment and textbooks like these"—he pulled out _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1_ from his jacket pocket—"that will help him control his magic."

She took the textbook and started quickly skimming through ti. After a few moments, she asked, "And… it's completely safe, is it?"

"Of course. Certainly much safer than continuing to allow his magic to manifest randomly and uncontrollably."

She paused, thoughtful, and then said, "may we meet with a current student at the school?"

 _Damn._ Filch hadn't anticipated this question. He very well couldn't explain that literally every previous magic user had died, even if it _had_ been a fluke.

He dodged the question. "Well, as school isn't in session now, I'm afraid that would take a lot of work to arrange." The woman's expression hardened. "But I'd be happy to show you some magic myself. May I step inside?"

The mother thought long and hard this time, but then she stepped aside and gestured him in. _Phew_ , thought Filch. They were getting somewhere now.

* * *

Filch stood in the kitchen, Benjmain and his mother, who still hand'nt given her name, watching apprehensively. Filched rummaged through his pocket. He felt a sack of floo poweder for the travel; a portkey leading to Hogsmeade, from Hogwarts's stash, just in case someone called the muggle police and he needed to make a quick get-a-way; his Kwikspell wand; the wand of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, still there. Ahah! Filch pulled out the roll of spell-o-tape. Spell-o-tape was easy to use and produced some impressive results, but more importantly, it was useful around the household. If he could use it to fix a problem in the house, it might warm them to him. He glanced around looking for something broken. He was hoping to see something damaged by a magical outburst that he could fix—that would be particularly fitting—but he didn't see anything. Instead, a burnt out light bulb on the ceiling caught his attention instead.

"May I?" he gestured toward a chair. Mrs. Smith made a small nod of her head, still not looking particularly inviting, but Filch pulled the chair over. Silently hoping that they woudln't ask him why he didn't just magically lift himself, he stood on the chair and reached for the bulb. He wrapped the spell-o-tape around it The bulb suddenly shown bright. _Muggle physics can't explain that,_ Filch thought, triumphantly.

"So it was loose, and you turned it back in?" the young Benjamin blurted out. _Damn._

"Aha!" Filch cried, acting unfazed. "If you didn't think that was impressive, wait until you see my next trick! He grabbed an empty glass from the counter, pulled out his Kwikspell wand and pointed. "Aguamenti~" he cried. A single instance of the spell, imbued by its magical creator, discharged itself. (Filch didn't know—and didn't want to think about—just how many charges of _Aguamenti_ were left.) The glass began to fill itself with water out of nowhere, and suddenly Benjamin and his mother both gasped out loud. He had guessed correctly that it would be an impressive spell. The water actually fills itself from the bottom of the glass, so it was a better choice than spells which produced visual effects coming _from_ the wand—those could have easily been faked by muggle technology.

He held out the glass to the two. "Fancy a drink of water?" Benjamin reached out but his mother stopped him.

"You drink it," she said, a hint of suspicion still in her voice.

 _Sigh._ Filch obliged and took the drink himself. Suddenly he felt huge relief that she had not taken his offer. The damn Kwikspell wand had produced water which tasted a bit rusty. He gulped the whole thing down and then sat the glass aside.

They were still for a moment, until finally his mother said, "when does term start?"

Filch smiled and sat down to begin talking logistics.


End file.
